Last month the New York Times published an article about the increase of adult students at institutions for higher learning, such as the Frances Perins program at Mount Holyoke. Current Frances Perkins Scholar Christine Rose was highlighted in this article.

Many Adults Falling Short of Degrees

By AMY ZIPKINMARCH 17, 2014

TWO and a half years ago, Kristine Rose enrolled full time at Mount Holyoke College and crammed her belongings into a 12-foot-square room.

She arrived on the campus in South Hadley, Mass., as a Frances Perkins scholar, a program established more than 30 years ago for women beyond traditional college age who sought an undergraduate degree. All bring previously earned college credit; Ms. Rose transferred in 57 of the 128 credits required for graduation.

In May, just shy of her 49th birthday, she expects to receive her diploma with a major in anthropology and a minor in English. For the onetime high school dropout, who waited tables, taught preschool and worked as a commercial account manager for an insurance company, her motivation for pursing a degree was simple. “I wanted to create more life chances,” she said.

As the economic benefits of having a college degree become better known, the number of full-time adult learners — those over 24 — is growing, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, increasing more than 8 percent to over 2.5 million in 2011 (the last year for which statistics are available) from 2.3 million in 2009. Some are veterans eligible for benefits under a post-9/11 G.I. Bill.

Still, the completion rate for older undergraduates lags that of their younger peers. Among full-time students at four-year institutions who entered college in 2007 and graduated within six years, 81 percent of those who entered when they were younger than 20 years old graduated, while the rate was 61 percent for those older than 24 at entry, according to data compiled last year by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center in Herndon, Va. The private Lumina Foundation, which focuses on increasing success in higher education, found that the completion rate for students aged 25 to 64 was nearly 39 percent.

Like their younger counterparts, some older students seek out highly selective colleges. Among those that enroll full-time older students are Tufts, Brown, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Yale.

Robert J. Hansen, the chief executive of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association, a Washington trade group, estimated that 700 four-year campuses offered continuing education programs in for older students to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Typically, the older students are put into their own applicant pool. For some, standardized tests are optional. While colleges say they award aid to those with demonstrated need, older students received a smaller percentage of private scholarships and institutional grants and a greater percentage of federal Pell Grants than traditional students, according to the 2011-12 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Older students may have jobs or rely on a spouse’s income, making them ineligible for need-based aid, said Mark Kantrowitz, senior vice president and publisher of Edvisors, an informational website about paying for college. Only a few, like Ms. Rose at Mount Holyoke, reside on campus.

Those enrolling to complete a degree, experts say, include career changers, those who deferred college earlier and those who want to be role models for younger family members. Older students say they face financial sacrifice and academic pressure they did not anticipate. Still, they say the road to a degree is largely worthwhile.

Cory Boatwright, 36, expects to graduate in May with a degree in international relations from the University of Pennsylvania School of Liberal and Professional Studies. A former staff sergeant in the United States Air Force, his tuition and living expenses are paid by a Department of Veterans Affairs program called Yellow Ribbon.
Mr. Boatwright said he found the rigor of the classroom difficult at first. Taking classes with traditional undergraduates, “I had to relearn how to learn, how to write at a different level and retain large amounts of material,” he said.

His experience galvanized him to create a Liberal and Professional Studies Student Association, a support group. Now 18 months old, the club has 200 active members. “Students need help finding the right resource and asking the right questions,” he said.

Last month his campus held a conference for older students from other Ivy League institutions. The day-and-a-half event, which included networking, a tour of the campus and details about graduate programs, attracted 70 people.
Though this activism was unanticipated, Nora Lewis, the vice dean for professional and liberal education at Penn, said older students were drawing from the undergraduate experience. “They are not just learning from the faculty, they are learning from their peers,” she said.

Her colleague, Dennis DeTurck, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said he found older students more focused. “That’s changing slowly as older students become more plugged into campus life,” he said.

Lucica Hiller, 32, entered Tufts’s Resumed Education for Adult Learning program two months ago, hoping for a career change. She holds a diploma in economics from a university in her native Romania. After moving to the United States in 2005, she worked for an investment bank but gravitated to an earlier interest in environmental engineering.
She said college was an adjustment, although she expected the courses to be tougher. “It’s hard to come in as an outsider,” she said. She is learning how to spend more time with her husband, a social worker, but has not yet learned how to spend time with friends. And she said she found it hard not to doubt her decision. “Financially it would make more sense to stay in a job, buy a house, have a kid and meet society and peer expectations,” she said. “My husband is good at telling me I’m happier and it will be just a couple of years.”

Whether more institutions will welcome older full-time undergraduates is unclear. Patrick Lane, senior policy analyst and project coordinator at the Adult College Completion Network, a clearinghouse for organizations and agencies in Boulder, Colo., said completion rates would not rise if colleges focused only on traditional undergraduates. Currently 22 percent of the population aged 25 to 64 has some college credit but no degree, said the Lumina Foundation, which finances the network.

One stumbling block for would-be students is that each college makes its own rules about which courses they accept for transfer credit. “The pathways between and among institutions are difficult to traverse,” said Susan J. Schurman, dean of the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations.

For now, Ms. Rose’s postgraduate plans remain fluid. She said that she had come to resemble her fellow students in some ways: At times the only way to reach her is on Facebook. Still, she said, she sees a difference: “I have 20 years of life experience to draw on.”

Read the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/education/many-adults-falling-short-of-degrees.html?src=twrhp&_r=0